The surrender of the 148th Division

On the evening of 28 April 1945, a few hours after Brazilian infantry had attacked Fornovo di Taro – a small town on the Taro river, about twenty kilometres south-west of Parma – German envoys came over to the Brazilian lines. The commander of the 148th Infantry Division, surrounded in the valley, Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico, was asking for a ceasefire and for talks on surrender. Many war chronologies record under 28 April that “the German 148th Division surrenders to the Brazilian Expeditionary Force”. The date needs refining: on 28 April the decisive attack was under way and negotiations began, but the surrender itself took place on 29 April, and units were still laying down their arms the following day. Nor was it only the 148th Division that surrendered: along with it went the remnants of the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division (PL) and of two divisions of the army of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic.

Retreat from Liguria

The 148th Infantry Division, converted from a reserve division in the autumn of 1944, had fought the Allied landing in Provence in August and then crossed the Alps into Italy. It held the western end of the front, between the Apennines and the coast of the Ligurian Sea. During the winter its soldiers took part in operations against Italian partisans on the borders of Tuscany and Liguria, in the course of which – as research by historians including Carlo Gentile has shown – civilians were also killed. In December 1944 the division took part in the German–Italian attack in the Serchio valley that took the US 92nd Division by surprise.

When in mid-April 1945 the Fifth Army broke through the front in the Apennines and the Brazilians took Montese, the position of the German flank on the Ligurian Sea became hopeless. On 22 April Fretter-Pico, on orders from higher command, abandoned La Spezia. The main body of the division set off over the Cisa Pass towards the Po valley, intending to break through northwards, across the river and on towards the Alps. Retreating with it were General Mario Carloni’s 1st Bersaglieri Division “Italia” and part of the 4th Alpine Division “Monte Rosa”. Along the way the columns came under fire from Italian partisans, while the US 92nd Division pressed after them along the coast.

Collecchio and Fornovo

Meanwhile the Brazilian 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division under General João Baptista Mascarenhas de Morais was advancing on the left wing of the Fifth Army, covering its march towards the Po. General Euclides Zenóbio da Costa motorised part of the infantry by taking the artillery batteries’ lorries. On 26 April a Brazilian reconnaissance squadron sent south of Parma ran into the leading elements of the German column at Collecchio – armoured cars and tanks of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division and infantry of the 148th Division.

The Brazilians brought up reinforcements in jeeps and lorries and attacked in the evening. According to accounts, the battalion commander, Major Orlando Gomes Ramagem, wanted to wait out the night, but Mascarenhas de Morais ordered an immediate attack. The fight for Collecchio, waged without artillery and with the support of only a few tanks and tank destroyers, lasted all night. The Germans tried several times to break out to the north and launched a final attack before dawn on 27 April, and by midday the town was in Brazilian hands. Prisoners stated that the main body of the 148th Division was in the Fornovo area.

The Brazilians closed the routes out of the Taro valley to the German–Italian column, relying on the help of partisans who knew the ground and held the crossings. On 28 April, with tank support, the Brazilian 6th Infantry Regiment attacked Fornovo. Mascarenhas de Morais sent the encircled troops a summons to surrender unconditionally – according to Brazilian accounts it was delivered by the parish priest of a nearby village. At about 10 p.m. German envoys presented themselves at the Brazilian lines.

The surrender

The negotiations went on all night. On the morning of 29 April Fretter-Pico accepted the terms of surrender and reported to the Brazilian command; General Mario Carloni, commander of the “Italia” Division, surrendered with him. Columns of prisoners came down from the Taro valley throughout that day and the next. According to Brazilian figures, 14,779 men were taken prisoner, including two generals and nearly 800 officers; the Brazilians also captured about 80 guns, 1,500 vehicles and several thousand horses. The prisoners were later handed over to the Americans; Fretter-Pico was released from captivity in 1948.

Brazilian historians stress that this was the only German division in Italy to be captured whole, together with its command, before the general surrender. Others – even when shattered – kept retreating to the end. This assessment is broadly accurate, although the moment at which it happened must be borne in mind. By the end of April 1945 the German front in Italy no longer existed: the Allies had broken out into the Po plain and crossed the Po, partisans had taken control of Milan, Genoa and many other cities, and on 28 April, by Lake Como, they shot Mussolini. The German and Italian troops at Fornovo were exhausted, cut off and without hope of relief. At the same time, nothing compelled them to surrender to the Brazilians in particular – that was the result of the swift, bold action of a division which, despite the enemy’s numerical superiority, barred his way and refused to be stopped.

Meanwhile, unbeknown to the soldiers at Fornovo, representatives of the German Army Group C were already negotiating with the Allied command at Caserta on the surrender of all German forces in Italy. The instrument was signed on 29 April, the day of the surrender at Fornovo, and came into force on 2 May.

The end of the Brazilians’ campaign

After Fornovo the Brazilian division moved on westwards and north-westwards, through Piacenza and Alessandria towards Turin. On 2 May at Susa, at the foot of the Alps, its units met French troops. There its war came to an end.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force – some 25,000 men, who passed through the front in several rotations – had fought in Italy since September 1944. According to Brazilian figures it lost about 450 killed, plus a few airmen of the Brazilian fighter group, which flew the P-47 Thunderbolt. In all it took more than 20,000 enemy soldiers prisoner, most of them at Fornovo.

Memory

In the summer of 1945 the soldiers were greeted by crowds in Rio de Janeiro, but soon after their return the force was disbanded and its units dispersed. The government of President Getúlio Vargas, who in August 1942 had declared war on Germany and Italy, feared the veterans of a war against fascism returning to a country ruled by the Estado Novo dictatorship. In October 1945 the army removed Vargas from power, and in December the former war minister, General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, was elected president. Historians point out that the experience of a war for democracy in Europe contributed to this turning point, although its causes were broader.

In Brazilian memory, Fornovo, alongside Monte Castello and Montese, became a symbol of the country’s part in the war – the only Latin American state to send ground forces to Europe. The veterans, affectionately known as pracinhas (“little soldiers”), were held in respect for decades, although many complained of a lack of state support. The surrender ceremony is re-enacted every year at Collecchio and Fornovo, and since 1960 the remains of the fallen Brazilians have rested in the Monument to the Dead of the Second World War in Rio de Janeiro.